York Supervisors Vent About Cost of State's Chesapeake Bay Plan

By Sam Thrift Monday, October 10, 2011

The York County Board of Supervisors was updated Tuesday on the county’s plan to comply with new Chesapeake Bay regulations, and the board members had a chance to share some concerns - not the least of which is how to fund a plan that is projected to cost  so much it will more than double the county's current annual expenses.

The Environmental Protection Agency approved the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) plan to reduce pollutants in the Chesapeake Bay in 2010, and Bay states had to come up with their own plans to meet the new criteria. Many localities have expressed concerns over the past few months that the plan will cost local governments, who already facing tight budgets, millions. Read both sides of the TMDL debate by clicking here and here.

John Hudgins, York County director of Environmental Development Services, told the board about the steps the county is taking to comply with the plan and the various pollutant allowances set by EPA.

York County’s strategy to meet the criteria set by the EPA includes using existing programs to the maximum extent, establishing a TMDL working group to monitor ordinance changes and develop strategies and hire a TMDL consultant to develop project scopes for the 2017 and 2025 milestones set by the EPA.

The board was concerned that individual localities may be doing their best to follow the plan, but if neighboring jurisdictions aren’t as diligent, everyone will have to suffer the consequences.  During their hour-long discussion, board members said the lack of information provided by the state is making them uneasy.

“It is a process that is in a great state of flux,” County Administrator James McReynolds said, responding to board members' questions. “We’ve received a lot of information, but there is still a lot of uncertainty.”

To help show what the locality has done to meet the EPA criteria, York County deployed the Chesapeake Assessment and Scenario Tool - CAST - Sept. 28. CAST is a new water-based tool used to develop and quickly receive feedback on various pollution reduction scenarios. Using CAST, York will be able to see how their past actions have affected the bay and gain an understanding of which Best Management Practices (BMPs) are most effective at reducing the nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment loads in the future. The allocation for York County loads, by millions pounds per year, are 5.38 of nitrogen, .06 of phosphorus and 145 of sediment.

The information from CAST is intended to help the county refine their management decisions and adapt their actions prior to submitting their information into the Chesapeake Bay Program model for analysis.

“We need to make sure that our past BMPs are credited in [the new] model,“ Hudgins said. “There’s a lot of work ahead of us to make sure everything is in place and bringing the model up to date since 2006.”

District 5 Supervisor Tom Shepperd, along with the rest of the board, was concerned the EPA will not consider the money spent to try to meet previous EPA standards when implementing the new plan.

“Once we go beyond this calendar year, [meeting the EPA’s new requirements] starts getting real expensive,” Shepperd said. “I’m going by the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission’s figures, and it is more than our current budget. The annual cost for this program is more than our annual budget total.”

Shepperd said the state should provide funds for any additional requirements set by the new EPA.

“I find it ridiculous. You come down with something stupid like this and no one can do it,” Shepperd said. “It destroys the state’s credibility when you try to force a plan down a community’s throat when they can’t afford to do it.”

The draft of the board’s strategies is due to the state by November.